


Speaking from the Heart

by PastelSailor



Category: Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Fate/stay night - All Media Types
Genre: Confessions, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, One Shot, Romance, Sappy, Short One Shot, basically me making up for lack of canon romance so im filling it in, fluff with angst ending, im sorry i love u romani, mild spoiler for romani i guess, short and sweet, spoiler for final singularity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 08:35:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20150731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PastelSailor/pseuds/PastelSailor
Summary: “I think I’m in love with you."





	Speaking from the Heart

“I think I’m in love with you, and I’m terrified.” 

Dr Roman paused mid examination. Blush rose to his cheeks and he froze with a stethoscope to her heart.

“E-Excuse me?” He squeaked. Ritsuka’s own cheeks were as rosy as the doctor’s and a slight cringe to her expression suggested that she hadn’t planned to say that. But she was making no move to retract it either.

After a few moments of embarrassing silence with both parties looking desperately to the other to break it, Dr Roman tried to pull the situation together. 

Jokingly he stated, “I know I said I’d take a listen to your heart, but you didn’t need to confess your hidden affection to me.” He tried to say it casually, as if to brush off the odd confession as gently as possible. 

He placed a hand to her shoulder like he usually did when he was trying to calm her down or emotionally prepare her for the singularity ahead. However, she reached for his hand on her shoulder and grew redder. Although she had been clearly trying to keep eye contact with him throughout this, she didn’t seem to be able to manage it anymore. She wasn’t sure why, but she knew she needed to say something now or she’d never get the chance ever again.

“I like the way your hands fits in mine. Its reassuring. I like the way your eyes crinkle when you laugh and the goofy smile you get when you’re embarrassed.” It starts off somewhat slow, like she’s working the courage up to say more, and suddenly she’s pouring it all out. She can’t seem to stop. Like a shooting star that has dragged the entire sky to fall with it. 

There’s a sense of urgency to it and the things that follow are raw and unfiltered, like the quiet desires you never voice and stubbornly bury at the bottom of your heart. 

“Sometimes I wish I injured myself more just so I could spend more time with you. I like when you always find time to speak and check up on me. I like the way your eyes light up when you see the canteen has made strawberry cake. I like how enthusiastic you are about your idol and how much support you give to your passions. I love being with you and I just miss-,” But finally he cuts her off by taking her hand and grasping it between his own. He kneels in front of her as she sits in the patient chair with a slight tremble to her shoulders. Her face is frozen in an expression of embarrassed blankness, like dozens of error messages are clouding her eyes and she can’t register her surroundings.

“Hey, hey- Its okay, you know I’m always here for you.” He holds her hand a little tighter as she bows her head and hides her face behind her locks.  
“I…” He starts but stops. His own emotions are overwhelming him too. Its hard to know what to say next. He’s a trained doctor with a stethoscope around his neck, but he can’t even read his own heart, he thinks bitterly. There’s so much to say, but his brain is having trouble translating it into a coherent reply. How does one reply when there’s so much to say but never enough words to express them?

“I just wish I could tell you how much you mean to me – How much thinking of your smile both makes me homesick but also like my heart is in the clouds. I feel alive when I’m with you, like I’m not fighting a grand war that decides everybody’s fate in this big, big universe. I’m so small and yet when I’m with you, even if my limbs were brittle sticks I’d still feel like fighting for the world is worth it.” She chokes a little on her words. 

“You make me want to fight to be alive.” 

She’s a little calmer now and her words are not coming out quite as randomly. But there’s a crushed lilt to her tone, as if she’s already lost the battle.  
It makes him worried and an instinct he didn’t realise he had, builds in him to reach out and brush her bangs away from her eyes and ask what’s wrong. Before he can even bury said instinct, a delicate tear falls from her hidden face and lands on his glove. Its not his skin so he might not have noticed had they not been this close. But he’s seen it, and again he feels emotion welling up inside him like a tidal wave rising to meet the moon. 

His hand rushes to her face to gently cup it and pull it back up to look at him. Small tear’s line her cheeks and she looks surprised at his gesture. Her smile is gone, gone, gone… He wants it back. He wants to hear her playful taunts, to see her signature confident smile even in the face unknown danger, to share his sweets with her, to wake up with her next to him.

In a breathless voice he finally says something. “I think I’ve fallen in love with you.” A smile wraps around his lips as he says it. It forms naturally on his lips, and his eyes crinkle with it. 

Her own eyes widen in contrast, and her face lights up like the same way a flower opens to the sun. A smile to match the brightness of the sun.  
An unstoppable feeling of warmth has spread to his face and there’s this heavenly feeling of contentment that follows it. A seed that has settled in both of them seems to have successfully bloomed, and there’s a blissful few moments of quiet silence. Its as if in both heart’s a sprout has finally broken the surface of the soil. 

She reaches out to him and collapses out of the chair and into his waiting arms. Ritsuka is crying again, but the sobs are ones of relief and punctuated with laughs in between. 

“Did you really consider letting yourself get hurt more just to see me? I’m flattered but as a doctor I’d have to advise against it.” Romani jokes. The laughter that spills from her is playful and warm like sunlight. Romani think’s he just fell a little more in love with her. 

For awhile, they just held each other, basking each other’s warmth and presence. They embraced each other like their world would fall apart once they parted.

“I love you, I don’t think I can bear to lose you.” There’s a tinge of old pain to it. They live a dangerous life though, so Dr Roman understands.

“I won’t.”

“Promise me.” 

“I promise. I can’t stay away from you; I’ve been waiting my whole life for you.” He whispers it to her ear, like it was a promise the world didn’t deserve to hear. A secret just between them, that no universe could break. She sinks further in his arms and settles, nuzzling a little into the crook of his neck. There is a serenity to them that you don’t see in anywhere but paintings.

“The way I feel when I’m with you… I don’t think I’ll ever find it again.” She says it with a smile in her voice that has no tremble, as if this is the one thing she truly understands in her life. 

****

Some more tears fall from her chin and she absentmindedly goes to wipe them away and nestle herself further into the soft embrace. 

Her pillow meets her. Its black. 

Romani is not here. It’s not the doctor’s office. 

She’s alone.

The dream has shattered, and she’s left to pick up the scattered pieces of her heart from the tears she’s cried into her pillow.

Ritsuka stares at the ceiling of her dark room but does not cry. There was a part of her that always knew that that was a dream. Reality was that they both clumsily flirted and skirted around the real depth of their feelings, leaving everything unsaid.

There was always another time, always another tomorrow. Until there wasn’t.

She remembered the memory fondly at first, but in the wake of losing him it became tainted with a sense of waste. Why didn’t she say anything earlier? Maybe nothing could change in the grand scheme of things, but maybe she could have spent more time with him. Maybe she could have done things better. 

But the past was the past, and there were no second chances.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3  
I'm not very good at writing romance or fluff, but I'm trying my best to learn so I hope I conveyed the feelings at least somewhat well. And I hope some of the lines weren't too sappy haha. Full disclosure, I listened to lots of love songs, browsed pinterest and read some poems, so I'm a little dramatic and probably was inspired by some stuff.  
Did anyone catch the small hints I sprinkled in about it being a dream? I tried to make it subtle but also not out of left field.  
In case it was unclear; this follows canon in that nothing ever "explicit" is confirmed between the two, and Romani dies. My angsty head canon is that Ritsuka regrets and is kind of haunted by the fact that she never got to confess properly, hence her cathartic dream. They were busy people, trying to save the world and putting every else above themselves, so they never got the chance to just be themselves together.
> 
> Any advice or criticism is very welcome! General comments are of course loved too! <3


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